Yosemite/S. CA area ??

[CPM]

I'm in the process of planning a California trip for next summer. Anyone been to Yosemite? If so, where did you stay? What did you do there?
And, we will be coming from LA, so it would have to be at that end of the park.
Any other suggestions?
The tenative plan is to fly into LAX, drive to Yosemite, we have about a week before we will be in the Anaheim area. We are combining this trip with a business trip, so we have to be in Anaheim for 5 nights. I booked 9 nights at the convention hotel, so we have family time at DL.
What else do you suggest we see within those areas. Santa Barbara has always been of interest to me too.
Any other message boards you can suggest?
Thanks

 

[NostalgicDad]

Yep, we did our trip to Yosemite/DL during the first part of August. It actually worked out pretty well. We flew into LAX landing prior to 9am. Got in the rental and made the drive via the quickest route up through Bakersfield/Fresno. Not much to see but it was all new terrain to us anyway so it was all good. We stopped twice, once was to eat lunch. The total time was 5 1/2 hours to our B&B just south of the park entrance. Sierra Sky Ranch was the place. Somewhat rough accomodations but we were hardly there during those 4 days. We would have like to have stayed in the park but we decided too late in order to get those reservations in time. The town of Oakhurst was only 4 miles to our south and made for easy access to morning breakfast runs for the kids. I think it was only 10 miles or so to the park entrance. The thing we found out about Yosemite is to make sure you know in advance what you want to do each day since you have to back-track quite a bit in order to navigate through the park. To give you an idea, it took us about 2 1/2 hours to drive the ~40 miles to Tuolumne Meadows which is on Hwy 120 (Tioga Rd) towards the eastern side of the park. We knew ahead of time that it would be a full day to go there, spend time, then return. That night, we had planned on being at Glacier Point really late to take in some stargazing. Definitely do that if you have time as it was super! For our trip back to Anaheim, we took the more scenic and much longer route back. From Fresno, continue on to San Luis Obispo then take the 101 south. We went through Santa Barbara, etc. and the total drive time to the Candy Cane Inn was right at 9 hours. We relaxed that night before doing the SD Zoo on a Sunday. DL followed for the next 5 days. We enjoyed the itenerary and fell in love with Yosemite like you can't imagine. What a great place! We hiked to a couple of waterfalls (Bridalveil and Vernal) and did some other trails in addition to letting the kids swim in the COLD river. The Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias was also quite a sight. There were a lot of the places in the park where I could've just sat and pondered if I didn't have to stay on the move with the family. The vistas are spectacular! After all the hiking then all the walking in the parks, our feet felt pulverized, though. Other than that, it was a great trip.

 

[CPM]

Great information!!!

Okay, do you think 3 nights in the park is good?
I was thinking of driving to Fresno the first day, we get in at 10:00am to LAX, I know we will be exhausted. So, if we drive to Fresno, we can get a nice early start the next day.

And, how long did it take you to get to Santa Barbara on the long route? Maybe we can stay there a couple of nights. Anywhere along the way you would have condisered staying? I don't think I want to drive 9 hours in a day.

I'm sort of confused as to what to do when we get to the park itself. It's about the only National Park I haven't been to, so I'm really looking forward to it. We aren't big on major hikes. We did Denali this past summer and did some short hikes on high traffic trails. That is about our speed.

If you didn't stay at that B & B where would you suggest? I know the Ahwahnee is nice, but it's pretty steep in price.

Thanks again for any info.

 

[NostalgicDad]

I think 3 nights is good as long as you're not interested in doing/seeing everything there is to see. I'd like to go back and do an entire week just at Yosemite to be honest. But, we came away feeling that we got to as much as we had hoped in the 4 days we were there. As far as staying over in Fresno, you're only about 40 miles from the park so I would personally just drive on to the park or wherever it is you will be staying. We reallistically didn't get out of LA until after 10am and we were at our B&B between 3 and 4pm.

I would say it took us about 6 hours to get to Santa Barbara when we left Yosemite. I honestly can't say or suggest where to stay on that route as we were not paying attention to lodging on our way to Anaheim.

You might check out www.yosemitefun.com for some planning ideas in the park. He has a great "How to do Yosemite in 2 Days" guide that seemed to make sense.

The Ahwahnee is certainly the place to stay if you can foot the bill and get reservations WELL in advance. Yosemite Lodge is in the valley and seems to be really popular. I happened to like the looks of the Tenaya Lodge which is just on the south side (outside) of the park. Unfortunately, we didn't plan it far enough in advance for that one either.

 

[CPM]

Thanks again. I will look into those places to stay in Yosemite.
Santa Barbara seems to be a perfect place to stop, 6 hours is enough time in a car fro one day.
I appreciate all the info. Now I have some ideas to start planning.

 

[BillyFan]

We were just in Yosemite over the weekend, and just rode our bikes all over the park. They rent bikes at Curry Village and I believe Yosemite Village, if you don't bring your own. There were about 10 miles of paved, pretty flat bike trails throught the valley floor. We made several stops to walk around and check things out, as well as taking a couple dips in the river, which I never thought I'd do! We did all this, including a lunch break in about 5 hours.
I noticed that they also offer different tours, including an open car excursion, which seemed like it would be fun. I believe they left from Yosemite Village.
Have a great time! Yosemite is a beautiful place.

 

[CPM]

Okay, I'm kind of in sticker shock over some of these hotel prices!! Especially in the Santa Barbara area! I mean over $400.00 for a Doubletree??

 

[eduk8r26]

Santa Barbara is a popular place in the summer. The Doubletree--if it's the one across from the beach, is actually a resort. You could probably find cheaper rates if you went inland and didn't stay on the beach. Also expect Yosemite to be extremely crowded in the summer time. Most of the waterfalls will be dried up later in the summer, unless we have an extremely wet winter, which is not likely. They do have buses that take you from one spot to another, as you can't drive through Yosemite Valley. But even the buses are often packed. Bikes are a good idea.

 

[CPM]

Santa Barbara is a popular place in the summer. The Doubletree--if it's the one across from the beach, is actually a resort. You could probably find cheaper rates if you went inland and didn't stay on the beach. Also expect Yosemite to be extremely crowded in the summer time. Most of the waterfalls will be dried up later in the summer, unless we have an extremely wet winter, which is not likely. They do have buses that take you from one spot to another, as you can't drive through Yosemite Valley. But even the buses are often packed. Bikes are a good idea.

I ended up booking the Embassy Suites in Oxnard, which is on the beach. Since the rest of thr trip is not on the beach, I wanted to at least get a couple of days on the Pacific. I did get it for under $300.00 @@.
I know it will be crowded and in a million years I wouldn't have picked it as a first choice of times to go. But, it's being combined with a conference.
I've done WDW in the summer, can't be worse. lol

 

[PrincessBelle39]

We did Yosemite at the end of our DL trip in September 2005. We had a fantastic time. We stayed at Yosemite Lodge which was really good. Not the Awahnee but not the same price either. It was clean and comfortable and we were in the park so that was all that mattered. We did drive in from San Francisco having driven up the coast from Anaheim and then out over the Tioga Pass thru Death Valley (which we loved also) to Las Vegas.
Yosemite and Death Valley are high on my list for next visit to that area. On the way up the coast we stayed at Ragged Point. Very underwhelmed especially for the price.

 

[CPM]

Princess Belle,
I booked us at the Yosemite Lodge. Was there a TV in your room? The web site says yes and the reservation form says no. Just curious.
Are there any requests I should put through? Any lodge activites we shouldn't miss?
Thanks!

 

[PrincessBelle39]

I'm pretty sure there was a TV in the room. I would say about 99% sure. We did the valley floor tour which was great. We didn't have a lot of time...only stayed two nights and got there in the dark the first night. We really enjoyed just wandering around ourselves. We found a gorgeous little beach on a river with a bridge that the kids loved. If I had had more time and my kids had been older, I would have loved to do a horse ride.

 

[biolabetty]

In case anyone wants to go this fall, I got the codes for the fall discounts in my email today.

Curry Village tent cabin CV39FALL from $39 a night Sept. 1- Nov. 18

Wawona Hotel's Hiker's Delight WfallHD from $137 a night, includes night's lodging, breakfast for 2, backpack with 2 box lunches, a book on easy day hikes and an area map Sept. 1-Nov. 18

Yosemite Lodge at the Falls B&B YosFallBB from $172 per couple Sept. 1-Nov. 18

The Ahwanee Two-Night Romance Package FallAwhRom Sept. 1-Nov. 3
2 night stay, 1 dinner for 2, a keepsake gift, sparkling wine, chocolate-dipped strawberries in your room from $1,216 per couple.

You can call (559)253-2071 to book these specials.

 

[CPM]

Great rates!!
Let me know when you get a discount code for July

 

[Juliah]

biolabetty,

Where do you find discount codes for Yosemite? We are thinking of going in the spring. Are there ever discounts for the spring or summer?

Does anyone know if other national park lodges sometimes offer discounts?

Thanks!

 

[biolabetty]

When I was checking out Kennedy Space Center, I signed up to receive their emails about launches. When I did that, I was also given the opportunity to receive info from many of the national parks. That's how I got the email today with the Yosemite codes. You can go here http://www.delawarenorth.com/Destinations/Destinations.asp to sign up to receive the newletter with the discounts. Have fun if you go, but I have one word of advice if you get the tent cabins. Don't get undressed with the light on, everyone outside can see everything you're doing because of the shadows, I learned this the hard way one time.

 

[Juliah]

That's great! Thank you!

Ha ha, thanks for the tip on the tent cabins. I think I'll just be on the safe side and sleep in something with four solid walls.

 

[CPM]

That's great! Thank you!

Ha ha, thanks for the tip on the tent cabins. I think I'll just be on the safe side and sleep in something with four solid walls.

I'm with ya on that one!

 

[biolabetty]

Ok, I got another code for Yosemite today. This one is for the Tenaya Lodge. The code is ETLFW6. The prices are $159 for Sept. 23-27, Oct. 2-4, 8-11, 14-17, 21-25, 28-31, Nov. 1-3, 9-10, 16-17, 30, Dec. 1, 7-8, 14-21, 23-25

$119 for Nov. 4-5, 11-15, 18-20, 25-29

$109 for Dec. 2-6, 9-13

Call (877) 382-8617 to book.

I also have codes for Sequoia if anyone wants them.

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Thank you for the link.

I'm going with two co-workers to Yosemite for a weekend in November (11/16-19), & the only thing I could get in the valley was a heated tent cabin (Awahnee is just too expensive). I just called w/the code & they said that it only applies to the non-heated cabins (brrrr). However, I joined so now I'll get those codes, too.